What happened when Jesus died? How did his death and resurrection make salvation possible? The answer is that by the voluntary sacrifice of his life, Christ willingly accepted the punishment for our sins, so that through our faith in him we could be reconciled with God – permanently.(Through the Year with Jimmy Carter, "The Most Important Moment in History", page 26).
Today
(January 27th) is my 69th birthday. Yesterday on reading Jimmy
Carter's meditation for the day I gleaned at this late date in my
life a new insight. It came as a story that formed in my mind. Being
a story, it does not strictly conform to facts. But for me it
advances my understanding of man's reconciliation to God and God's
reconciliation to man through the life and death of his only son,
Jesus Christ.
--The
Story--
Once
I had a neighbor and we never seemed to hit it off right. It began
years ago when a large trash container was stationed on our street in
front of my house. One day my neighbor came over with his own tools
and volunteered to trim a tree in my yard and put the trimmings in
the container. I told him I liked the tree the way it was and not to
trim it. With some consternation he left my premises. From that point
on things became colder and colder between us. When we approached
each other on the street, we avoided eye contact and looked past each
other.
Now
my neighbor had a young son and in time his son and I became friends.
Even so his father and I remain estranged. Then one day the son was
involved in a serious motor scooter accident. I went to the hospital
to visit him. When I went in his father was there, and when we
glanced at each other the age-old wound between us asserted itself
once again. Eventually, the doctor came in with a foreboding
diagnosis. I looked at my friend lying unconscious on the bed, and I
began weeping freely and uncontrollably. His father in silence looked
at me for a long time. Then he came over quietly and embraced me.
After a while he said, "I must love any man who loves my son so
much."
Thus
we are reconciled with our heavenly father when we love and believe
in his son--the suffering servant for mankind.
[ Mother & I once attended Jimmy Carter's Sunday school class in Plains, GA.]
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